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Unlike the NDP, Conservatives know who they are: Walkom

Both opposition parties were crushed in Canada’s October election. The Conservatives have a better chance at recovery.

Stephen Harper can be criticized for much. But he created an identity for the new Conservative party that is clear, coherent and — to at least a third of the voters — so appealing that they will not even consider a rival party, writes Thomas Walkom. (MARK BLINCH / REUTERS file photo)

By handing a sweeping victory to Justin Trudeau’s largely untested Liberals, voters repudiated the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

At the same time, they signaled their dissatisfaction with Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats, consigning them — again — to the purgatory of third-party status.

Both opposition parties are beginning the painful process of recovery. So far, the Conservatives are doing better.

The reason is that they know who they are. Harper can be criticized for much. But he created an identity for the new Conservative party that is clear, coherent and — to at least a third of the voters — so appealing that they will not even consider a rival party.

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The elements of this identity include faith in free enterprise, opposition to unions and a reluctance to spend public funds on anything other than crime-fighting or defence.

Instead, it takes what it calls moral stands on issues like terrorism or support for Israel that — in Canada at least — are politically safer.

So strong was the Conservative brand under Harper that his supporters rarely wavered, even when he failed to deliver on core ideological beliefs such as deficit elimination.

Following the party’s defeat last fall, some speculated it would return to a form of Red Toryism — of the kind that characterized the old Progressive Conservatives of Joe Clark or Brian Mulroney.

At the same time, the country has been treated to the unseemly spectacle of former Harper ministers, such as Tony Clement, trying to distance themselves from their government’s more unpopular decisions — including the elimination of the long-form census or the decision to sell armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

But the Conservative brain trust is urging the party to stick to the core of its ideological beliefs as it prepares to choose a new leader in a vote set for May 27, 2017.

This is the message that former Reform leader Preston Manning delivered in the Globe and Mail this week when he called on the party to take positions that align with conservative ideology in areas it has ignored, such as poverty or the environment.

It’s also the message behind a Maclean’s magazine essay written by former Harper aides Ken Boessenkool and Sean Speer that urges party members not to be seduced by the easy populism of businessman and putative leadership contender Kevin O’Leary.

Their point is that the Conservatives already have a marketable brand that voters understand — and that the party should build on it.

By comparison, the New Democrats are fuzzy. Party insiders might be able to decipher the amalgam of prairie populism, left-liberalism and Swedish-style social democracy that informs the NDP.

But most voters can’t. Indeed, as New Democrat stalwart Tom Parkin wrote for the Postmedia chain this week, too many “promiscuous progressives” think the Liberals and NDP are interchangeable.

Ironically, the NDP itself is to a large extent responsible for this confusion. In an effort to attract voters, it has downplayed its historical connections to democratic socialism and its ties to unions.

Instead, it has deliberately embraced policies — such as balanced budgets and low taxes for small business — that it thought would appeal to centrists.

The aim was to replace the Liberals as Canada’s main non-Conservative alternative. But as this election showed, the strategy can backfire.

In this election, the Trudeau Liberals were able to deke to the left of the Mulcair New Democrats simply by appearing bolder.

Faced with a choice between the Liberals and an NDP that seemed to be a milder version of the Liberals, voters chose the real thing.

The New Democrats’ share of the popular vote slid to 20 per cent, down from 31 per cent in 2011.

New Democrats are used to agonizing about their identity. They have been doing so for years.

Usually, the debate is over principle: Is the party abandoning its beliefs in a crass effort to win power?

But, as the Conservatives can attest, there is a very practical side to having coherent beliefs. You know who you are. And so does everyone else.

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